tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o) (01/27/89)
We just received our NeXT machine on Saturday (1/21), and I've had a chance to play with it some. Most of my impressions matched those already posted, so I won't waste bandwidth discussing them :-) My main worry about the system is that may not be ``hacker friendly'' enough. (And by hacker, I mean hacker in the constructive, and _not_ destructive sense. If this bothers you, substitute "good computer programmer" for "hacker") Let me give two examples: The first is the terminal emulator --- it's not perfect, and I've heard from a friend that won't be improved any. Apparently, the terminal emulator was only there to be used while the whiz-bang NeXT interface was being written, and according to her, when asked about getting it to be a full vt100 emulator, and supporting the arrow keys, Steve Jobs said something to effect of, "You're not supposed to use the terminal! Use the NeXT interface!" Wrong answer. Armed with a good version of tcsh, I can run circles around anyone who attempts to use _any_ mouse interface, for the simple reason that in the time to move hands from the keyboard to the mouse, positioning the mouse, and clicking, I can type 10 or more control sequences. Granted, it took me a long time to learn those control sequences, and I don't expect a naive user to know them --- but I know them, and I want to able to use them. The second example is NeXT's position on source code. You might make the case that source code isn't _absolutely_ necessary; but when there is no documentation available --- which is currently the case --- you should at least be able to consult the source code to find out what the heck a program is trying to do. In addition, if I find a bug, I want to able to look at the source code and make sure that it is in fact, Not My Fault. And of course, it's nice to able to fix a bug on the fly, instead of being hand-held by some User Support person (who will assure me it's my fault because I forgot to plug in some cable, or some other nonsence), and then waiting 3-4 weeks for Technical Support to send me a fix. Finally, I want to be able to modify the some system programs to do things my way ---- fully aware the NeXT won't and isn't obliged to support anything I change. Now, I'm well aware that the NeXT isn't targeted for people like me --- the user interface is set up so that any idiot can use it. Quips that only an idiot will want to use it aside, it is the hackers who will be developing applications to run on the NeXT, and it behooves NeXT _not_ to offend them. Instead, NeXT should welcome them, since they're the people who can help make the machine successful. I believe one of the reasons why the IBM PC was so successful is that IBM (surprisingly) freely released all the details about the machine, so that hackers wanted to play with it, and, in the process, they created all sorts of neat programs that users wanted to use --- and so lots of people bought IBM PC's. As far as I'm concerned, one of the great revolutions about the NeXT machine is that it is both User Friendly, with all of the warm, fuzzy dialog boxes, and Hacker Friendly, it running some form of Unix. If weren't hacker friendly, it would be just a high-priced Machintosh, with a few whizzy toys like the sound chip. I hope that Jobs won't throw away this advantage by being needlessly ideological about the NeXT interface being the only one true, Holy, way of accessing the NeXT, and about not releasing source code. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Theodore Ts'o mit-eddie!mit-athena!tytso 3 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139 tytso@athena.mit.edu If it's for real, it isn't!
johnl@ima.ima.isc.com (John R. Levine) (01/28/89)
In article <8948@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o) writes: >The first [concern] is the terminal emulator --- it's not perfect, and I've >heard from a friend that won't be improved any. ... Your friend is probably misinformed. There are two programs provided now in which you can get a shell. One is the terminal emulator, which gives you enough of a vt100 to run gnumacs, the other is the shell window which gives you a shell in an editable scrolling text window but no cursor control. At the developers' conference two weeks ago they said they planned to build full vt100 into the latter and ditch the current terminal emulator. >The second example is NeXT's position on source code. You might make >the case that source code isn't _absolutely_ necessary ... > >I believe one of the reasons why the IBM PC was so successful is that >IBM (surprisingly) freely released all the details about the machine ... Ah, but they didn't give out source code either. It's true that the current documentation is incomplete (even though it's a foot thick) and that source code is the traditional Unix alternative to decent manuals. I'd like source code, too, but am willing to see if I can do my hacking without it. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869 { bbn | spdcc | decvax | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something You're never too old to have a happy childhood.
asd@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) (01/28/89)
In article <8948@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o) writes: [lots of deleted stuff about NeXT doing the wrong thing with the cube] >I believe one of the reasons why the IBM PC was so successful is that >IBM (surprisingly) freely released all the details about the machine, >so that hackers wanted to play with it, and, in the process, they >created all sorts of neat programs that users wanted to use --- and so >lots of people bought IBM PC's. And for that matter, the original PC (the one that got this whole computing craze going), the Apple I. Full schematics were just a PART of the documentation Apple used to hand out in the manuals you got as a first time buyer. >with a few whizzy toys like the sound chip. I hope that Jobs won't >throw away this advantage by being needlessly ideological about the >NeXT interface being the only one true, Holy, way of accessing the >NeXT, and about not releasing source code. Well, I'd be a NeXT junky right now if it weren't for one thing: Jobs. Hopefully, he has changed and no longer is into, "You do it my way, period." idea that seems to have booted him from Apple. People kept screaming they wanted slots, color, etc. for the Mac. Didn't come out until he left. But I must admit, he does seem to brought about what looks like a fairly, not completely, thought out new wave in computing. If only Perot would step in now and say, "Go commercial! Sell those cubes to the public!" And if they could do it for less, that'd be great! After all, general public wouldn't need all the development tools, and if they wanted em, they could get em any time. kareth.